DURING THE WHOLE WEEK in Ireland, Juliet tried to tell Davey how she felt and that she wanted to come home. She rehearsed it in her head; she practised it in the mirror and wrote it down. When it came to it she just couldn’t do it. Besides, what did she expect him to do, give up everything to come back to Dublin? If not, how could she abandon him? After everything he did for her, how could she leave him now when he depended on her? Who would take care of him? And where would she go? Into Grace’s caravan? Or her gran’s box room? Gran and Granda were too old to care for her and Grace had her own problems. She was being selfish and cruel. Davey would be devastated. He had made a promise to her mother and she had made that same promise. She couldn’t break it. She had to suck it up. In four and a half years she’d be in medical school. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same.

It wasn’t hard transitioning back, she’d only been home a week. She had improved at kissing Kyle and spent any time that she wasn’t with family with him. She cried saying goodbye to him. He promised to Skype every other day. She promised she would, too. She asked Davey if they could go home for Christmas and he agreed, and even thought it was a good idea. Only six months to wait. Things were different; she could come home now, her ma wasn’t dead in Ireland. She was more alive on the streets of Dublin than anywhere else in the world.

Back in Nashville, she slipped into her old routine quickly: study, taking care of the house, Davey’s appointments and the laundry. He wanted her to stop, to be a kid, and told her it was his job to take care of her, but she liked doing those things, it gave her a reason to be there, she needed to feel useful. She argued her point; he nodded and told her that it wasn’t expected. It was needed, though – Davey was a mess and she didn’t really know how he ever managed without her. Maybe if he had a PA he’d be fine, but he didn’t, and despite being a busy man who needed to be in different places at different times, he had no watch and no concept of dates or time. She was his watch and his calendar. She knew where he was supposed to be and with whom and for what meeting and she liked it. It wasn’t as fun as being at home with Kyle, her cousins, her gran and granda, but it was something. It was a life.